10/01/2015 - Polaris Live Stream | Artemis BJJ | Open Mat

Class #623
Artemis BJJ (PHNX Fitness), Open Mat, Bristol, UK - 10/01/2015

GrappleThon fundraising is going well and the team is growing: our current total is £215, with 10 people on the team so far. If you'd like to help us reach our £4,000 target, pop over here, or for full details, go here. It's also been cool to see the women's class getting attention in the press, with three sources covering it over the last week. That prompted me to set up a Press page for Artemis BJJ, so I've got it all in one place: check that out here.
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I started off with some side control drilling with Tracey and Steve, where again the importance of pulling the elbow back for base when turning to knees came up. Both Tracey and Steve have shown real improvement since they began training with me, which is impressive as they've both only done about 10 lessons at this point. After Tracey left, I asked Steve what he wanted to work on, which turned out to be the same kind of side guard stuff I'd been playing with before my groin injury flared up.

Steve wanted to focus on the omoplata, plus we also threw in the related pressing armbar. As with Chris a while ago, I found that when going into progressive resistance, it was key to stop me driving my head back in and squaring up. It also made me wonder how best to stop them posting on their other arm, as that's what I kept doing to help me drive back across. I guess driving your knee into the upper back would do it, loading up weight there so they are squished head-first into the floor.
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After the class (and some sofa shopping), I met up with a few of my students to watch the Polaris Pro Invitational. This is the first time there has been a major home-grown UK BJJ international event, so I was interested to see how it would go. I was thinking of going to Cardiff in person, as it's only over the border from Bristol, but I'll wait until somebody wants to pay to send me. ;)

For now, I was happy with the stream. They've come a long way since the first streamed BJJ event six years ago. Although it slowed down once or twice, I didn't miss any of the action and those blips were brief. The schedule was tightly run, with no long pauses or staring at empty mats. It even finished early (I was home by 22:00), which was a nice surprise. I wasn't sure if I'd be sat around for several hours longer than the schedule promised, as that's certainly happened at other competitions I've watched. There was a thirty minute interval, but that's reasonable for a live event: after all, I for one need to go to the toilet at some point if I've been sat down for several hours!

At only £15, it was a great price for eight fights. I really liked not having to be up at 4am, as is always the case for the big US-based events (though ironically I am writing this at 4am due to my long-term insomnia ;D). The first two fights were a bit slow, but that was followed by an awesome women's fight between multiple world champion Michelle Nicolini and new black belt Angela Galvao. Considering the experience gap, Galvao did well, but Nicolini was clearly the dominant fighter. I hope that Polaris doesn't make the same mistake as Metamoris and only ever show one female fight before reverting to single sex match-making. I'm fairly confident they won't, as the people behind this are (I think, unless they were just sponsoring?) long-time supporters of women's BJJ, like the Tatami Fightwear team and Matt Benyon from Scramble.

It was a shame Polaris didn't have replays and a few more angles, as quite a few of the submissions happened on the other side of the camera. A more trivial criticism would be the very repetitive ads: the same two adverts were run over and over again. I don't mind a bit of advertising given the low price, but a bit of variety would be a plus. In an ideal world, there would also be at least one true sub only match during the webcast, with no time limits. I can accept that would be tricky to do live in a a big venue where time is money, but they could perhaps record it the day before at a local BJJ gym

There were three fantastic nogi fights on the night as well, featuring Dean Lister versus Keenan Cornelius, my first BJJ instructor Oli Geddes versus AJ Agazarm (Oli did really well considering the short notice and size difference), as well as the always exciting Garry Tonon versus the just as energetic Marcin Held. That was probably the fight of the night (I hope both athletes are invited back for the next event and matched against other people), along with Nicolini versus Galvao. I was disappointed I didn't get to see Telles' turtle guard, but then that wasn't his fault, because his opponent Mike Fowler decided not to engage it at all. It's not often you see a fighter of Fowler's calibre actively avoid somebody else's turtle.

So, all in all a brilliant first try from Polaris. They are doing pretty much everything right so far: women's fight, not inviting current members of Team Lloyd Irvin (like Copa Podio, who I won't be watching until they stop inviting TLI), no long delays and top notch match-making. Roll on Polaris 2! I'm hoping for Gabi Garcia versus Ronda Rousey, that would be an amazing match up. :D

Article - No Gi Worlds 2009 Live Stream

Article #3, by Can Sönmez

[If you're looking for the No Gi Worlds 2009 results, click here. For future reference, this is where the IBJJF stores competition results. If you're looking for the 2010 No Gi Worlds, that went a pay-per-view route instead]

Update: If you missed the 2009 live stream, the whole thing has now been released on a six hour long two DVD set. It is all region, so there shouldn't be any problems watching it no matter where you live.

I had an article all ready to go for later this week, but after watching the No Gi Worlds live stream last night and this morning, I felt the need to put something out about that instead. It is potentially a historic moment in BJJ, but not because of the fights. While the action was exciting, with upsets, beautiful grappling technique and even high amplitude throws, it is the medium which may prove truly momentous.

BJJ is known for being an expensive sport. The monthly training fees are often huge, to buy a gi can take plenty of cash, DVDs are far from cheap, and private lessons tend to be an expensive treat. However, Nogi.com, Budovideos and a whole bunch of other sponsors have done something new with Nogi Live. They've released an event for free: no pay per view required, just an internet connection.

You can't complain about free, but as one of the organisers of the No-Gi Worlds live stream warned might be the case, in an earlier Fightworks Podcast interview, there were a number of technical problems from the beginning (which here in the UK was 19:00).

The live coverage stuttered along for the first hour and a half, stopping and starting repeatedly. As you can see from my Twitter feed, I almost gave up at several points. However, I'm glad I decided to give it another try later, as the commentary had kicked in by 20:30. At 21:14, the Nogi live video went down again, but stabilised around 21:22, after which I didn't have any major problems (well, except for my laptop crashing, but I can't blame the No Gi Worlds for that). By the time of the finals at 22:06, the streaming issues appear to have been solved.

There was also a sidebar which didn't seem to serve any purpose. The whole night, it simply read "Upcoming Competitor 1 vs Upcoming Competitor 2". I presume the idea was that this would update as the event progressed, but clearly that needs more work for next time. It would be a handy feature if they could get it up and running.

Initially, commentary was handled by Joanne Spracklen (not Spracklan: the caption was wrong) and Jeff Glover. If you're not sure who Spracklen is, she runs MMA Girls.net, an unusual qualification for BJJ commentary (though she sensibly left the technical side of things to Glover). Either way, they had a difficult job. The camera jumped around from match to match (there were many to choose from, with twelve mats going at once), often with two at the same time on a split screen, making it tough to keep track of competitors. Glover didn't appear to have any notes, so had to rely on his ability to recognise fighters from his personal knowledge of the BJJ scene.

I was particularly pleased by the amount of women's matches on show: in terms of gender equity, the stream was much, much better than I'd expected. Having said that, I did get annoyed at the prolonged drooling over two ring girls, especially when it interrupted fight footage. I strongly dislike the whole concept.

By 21:39, I was watching my third female bout, a trend which continued into the finals. Another four had been streamed by midnight, including the excellent match featuring Sophia McDermott (they appear to have had trouble spelling her name), a methodical Rickson Gracie brown belt. Canadian blogger and black belt Sheila Bird was also competing, in what eventually became an exciting match with Hillary Williams.

There was a notable shift in commentary style for the finals. Glover and Spracklen were chatty, cracking jokes and exchanging anecdotes. Shawn Williams and Sean Patrick Flanery modified the tone, focusing on in-depth technical analysis rather than banter. That is probably a reflection of their experience commentating on the 2008 Mundials.

I don't often bother watching competitions unless there is a good deal of commentary: for me, it doesn't just add to the viewing experience, it makes it worthwhile. Even two people stalling in guard becomes an intriguing battle of wills, if the commentators can provide relevant and interesting technical input (such as noting grips, pressures, angles etc). Getting background details on competitors is great too, fleshing out the athletic endeavours taking place on the screen.

A few hiccups occurred with that commentary, such as the awkward handover shortly after 10pm, which involved several minutes of dead air and paper shuffling. It then completely disappeared at around 00:30, after the finals, but presumably that was so Sean and Shawn could take a break, given that this was a live event.

Once the finals and ensuing discussion had finished, there was an extended period of bouts with no sound at all, from 02:17 until 02:55, after which the screen went black. I went to bed a bit after 3am, so not sure if and when the absolutes took place: something to look forward to when I wake up, I guess. ;p

Interestingly for a BJJ competition, it wasn't just BJJers. Renowned MMA champion and catch-wrestling proponent Josh Barnett made a triumphant appearance in the black belt division, despite holding no BJJ rank (for his explanation prior to the event, click here). Satisfyingly, there was an interview with him later on, at 1am, one of several (including Kron Gracie, somewhat randomly) to fill in the time before the absolutes. This was a fabulous idea, especially as the two Seans did a brilliant job with the questions. So, definitely something that should be repeated for the next event.

I'm hopeful there will be other free streams, which I guess will depend on how much attention the advertisers receive as a result. All in all, this turned out well, so if the connection issues can be ironed out, perhaps this could be the future of BJJ broadcasting.

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